Fish Gasping for air!

[Sebastian83]

Hobbs my tank temp is at between 83-84F because I will be adding some Discus soon, probably around 5-6. They will be the last additons to the tank. Good thing this happened before I bought them

I would be very cautious about adding those discus or any more fish at this point. You already have 28 good size fish in there.......if you add anymore I suggest adding one at a time and watching your parameters closely.

Yeah I plan on monitoring my water param closley, and I already do 20% water changes once or twice a week. I also will probably get another aquarium to move out some of the fish, probably just the angels and a pleco though since the loaches will be impossible to catch.
My Angels will prob be easy to catch, they love to come torward to the net since I feed brine shrimp with it.

 

[fish_4_all]

I don't know enough about RO and CO2 and Fertilizer to say this is gospel but I have seen a lot of products that are specifically designed for RO tanks. Could it be something with the RO that is or isn't buffering the water and causing an increase in CO2 saturation before the CO2 meter turns off the CO2 from the PH change?

Maybe check your KH and GH and see if the RO has caused a change.

Like I said I don't know this as fact but I have read a lot about having to change a litte of your dosing and have to do other things with RO.

 

[Sebastian83]

I am not sure, but I just started adding RO water yesterday (after my original post).

 

[fish_4_all]

Sorry, I guess I got off topic with RO but it was relevant, a little. With RO water and filters, all the minerlas are stripped and oyu have to buffer the water. With UV sterilization, all matter is basically killed or destroyed which goes through it. In the process of the UV sterilization, if I understand what I have read, the matter is reintroduced but is dead. Now if you had a lot of algae or an unseen algea bloom, and believe me, they can be unseen, then all of that dead matter has stripped the water of O2 and that is why your fish are gasping. Add a stone and get some air in there. As for long term, it might get better but I would also watch for ammonia and nitrite spikes from all the decaying matter.